Sunday, February 17, 2019

No one ever made a good movie about writing. Scribbling or tapping away at keys does not a gripping drama make. It’s the life of the scribe that matters: scandal, strife, experience. An Ernest Hemingway biopic would be unwatchable if it weren’t for the constant drinking and occasional plane crashes.

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the French woman of letters and Nobel nominee, crammed in about as much as Hemingway, her career spanning the charmed peak of La Belle Époque to the end of World War II. With Keira Knightley in the titular role, Colette charts her earlier years, from prim country girl to dedicated libertine.

During the film’s unpromising opening, she’s plucked from her idyll by handsome suitor Henry Gauthier-Villars (Dominic West), better known to Parisian society as “Willy”: a muckraker and connoisseur of popular filth, for whom the truth is something that always needs to be sexed up.

He introduces Colette to the city’s voluptuous charms: a demure Louisiana belle (Eleanor Tomlinson), saucy vaudeville acts, the transgender pioneer Mathilde de Morny (Denise Gough). But he turns out to be both adoring and manipulative. He publishes one of Colette’s novels under his own name, takes the credit for creating the semi-innocent, semi-Sapphic schoolgirl character of Claudine and bows alone for the applause of an enraptured audience. We’re in similar territory to the recent Glenn Close movie The Wife, or the rumours about Vladimir Nabokov and F Scott Fitzgerald.

Willy is no outright villain, though. His love for Colette is genuine, although selfish, earnest but blind. He’s a product of a scandalous age. And it’s here that Knightley, so familiar with these bodice-ripping period pieces, truly excels. She plays Colette with an irrepressible sense of dignity: rather than condone her husband’s philandering, she demands honesty. Rather than churning out Claudine novels, she runs off to the theatre.

It’s Valentine’s Day 2019. Honestly, do you really need this intimation from us? Nope. Look around you, everyone is gripped by Valentine’s Day fever. Markets are flooded with greeting cards, flower bouquets and soft toys. People are buying roses and heart-shaped balloons for their loved ones.

Edward Rochester

Does not boast of a handsome face. Has a crazy wife locked up in his mansion’s attic. He is also moody, arrogant, cynical and jaded. That’s Charlotte Brontë’s hero (read: anti-hero) from Jane Eyre – Edward Rochester. Despite a long list of shortcomings, Mr Rochester sweeps the novel’s young heroine, Jane (as well as readers) off her feet. The brooding, difficult and secretive master of Thornfield Hall is not your ideal man. In fact, this Byronic hero is far from perfect. But despite all odds, you cannot stop from falling in love with him. Watch this "There Is No Debt" clip from 2011 movie Jane Eyre based on Bronte’s novel. It starred the very talented Michael Fassbender as Mr Rochester and wonderful Mia Wasikowska as Jane.

Fitzwilliam Darcy or Mr Darcy
Is it just me or has everyone been in search of their Mr Darcy (full name: Fitzwilliam Darcy)? The hero of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is your quintessential archetype of the aloof romantic hero. His pride makes the novel’s protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet outrightly reject his marriage proposal, and she declares him to be ‘the last man in the world’ she could ever be prevailed upon to marry! Ouch. Despite his pride and her prejudice, they continue to be drawn to each other. Jane Austen’s most favourite work has been adapted on many occasions, and you can relive Elizabeth and Mr Darcy’s chemistry with this short clip from 2005-film Pride and Prejudice. It starred Keira Knightley Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy.